Rust Code Quality Checks

When to Use

• After completing significant code changes
• Before creating commits
• Before creating pull requests
• When user says "check code quality", "run quality checks", "make sure code is good", etc.

Instructions

Run this essential quality checklist in order. These are the core checks that must pass before committing code:

1. Fast Typecheck

cargo check

Quickly verifies the code compiles without generating artifacts.

2. Compile Production Code

cargo build

Ensures production code builds successfully.

3. Format Rustdoc Comments

Invoke the write-documentation skill to format rustdoc comments using cargo rustdoc-fmt.

This formats markdown tables and converts inline links to reference-style.

4. Generate Documentation

cargo doc --no-deps

Verify there are no documentation build warnings or errors.

If there are link warnings, invoke the fix-intradoc-links skill to resolve them.

CRITICAL: Never remove intra-doc links to fix warnings. When you encounter:

• Unresolved link to a symbol → Fix the path using crate:: prefix (see write-documentation skill)
• Unresolved link to a test module → Add #[cfg(any(test, doc))] visibility (see organize-modules skill)
• Unresolved link to a platform-specific module → Use #[cfg(all(any(test, doc), target_os = "..."))]

Links provide refactoring safety - cargo doc catches stale references. Converting to plain backticks removes this protection.

5. Linting

Invoke the run-clippy skill to run clippy and enforce code style standards.

6. Compile Test Code

cargo test --no-run

Ensures test code compiles without running the tests.

7. Run All Tests

cargo test --all-targets

Runs all tests (unit, integration, etc.) but does not run doctests.

If tests fail, use the Task tool with subagent_type='test-runner' to fix failures.

8. Run Doctests

cargo test --doc

Runs documentation examples to ensure they work correctly.

9. Cross-Platform Verification (Optional)

For code with platform-specific #[cfg] gates (especially Unix-only code), verify Windows compatibility:

cargo rustc -p <crate_name> --target x86_64-pc-windows-gnu -- --emit=metadata

This checks that #[cfg(unix)] and #[cfg(not(unix))] gates compile correctly on Windows without needing a full cross-compiler toolchain.

When to run:

• After adding or modifying #[cfg(unix)] or #[cfg(target_os = "...")] attributes
• When working on platform-abstraction code
• Before committing changes to DirectToAnsi input handling or other Unix-specific code

Reporting Results

After running all checks, report results concisely to the user:

• ✅ All checks passed → "All quality checks passed! Ready to commit."
• ⚠️ Some checks failed → Summarize which steps failed and what needs fixing
• 🔧 Auto-fixed issues → Report what was automatically fixed

Optional Performance Analysis

For performance-critical code changes, consider also running:

• cargo bench - Benchmarks (mark tests with #[bench])
• cargo flamegraph - Profiling (requires flamegraph crate)
• Invoke the analyze-performance skill for flamegraph-based regression detection

Supporting Files in This Skill

This skill includes additional reference material:

• reference.md - Comprehensive guide to all cargo commands used in the quality checklist. Includes detailed explanations of what each command does, when to use it, common flags, and build optimizations (sccache, wild linker, etc.). Read this when:
  • You need to understand what a specific cargo command does
  • Troubleshooting build issues
  • Want to know about build optimizations in .cargo/config.toml
  • Understanding the difference between cargo test --all-targets and cargo test --doc

Related Skills

• write-documentation - For rustdoc formatting (step 3)
• fix-intradoc-links - For fixing doc link warnings (step 4)
• run-clippy - For linting and code style (step 5)
• analyze-performance - For optional performance checks
• test-runner agent - For fixing test failures (step 7)

Related Commands

• /check - Explicitly invokes this skill